Cop not charged for killing innocent 'swatting' prank victim

Andrew Finch was killed by police after a "swatting" prank in December. (GoFundMe)

The officer who shot and killed an innocent Kansas father as a "swatting" prank turned deadly will not face charges.

Andrew Finch, a 28-year-old Wichita resident with two children, was fatally shot by police in December after a California video gamer called police to his house for a fake crime, prosecutors say.

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He put his hands in the air as he went outside to talk to the police, but an unidentified officer who thought he was a shooting suspect fired on him after they said that he reached for his waistband.

"The officer believed Mr. Finch was the suspect who shot his own father and had been holding his younger brother and mother in a closet," Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett said Thursday while announcing that the officer would not be charged.

"This officer perceived these movements by Mr. Finch and believed the subject he was looking at … was reaching for the gun he would have used to shoot his father moments earlier. The officer believed he saw a gun coming up in Mr. Finch's hand."

Finch was unarmed and was not involved in any sort of shooting before his death, which came when a bullet that hit his house ricocheted and hit him.

Video released by the police shows the officer who fired was across the street from the home and armed with a long gun.

Finch's family was left "devastated and disappointed" that the officer was not charged after shooting their loved one at his own home, their lawyer, who has also filed a civil rights suit, told KWCH.

Tyler Barriss, a 25-year-old who lived in Los Angeles, is charged in Kansas with involuntary manslaughter and other crimes after an alleged "swatting" hoax where he called 911 and claimed to be a gunman at the house.

Tyler Barriss is charged with involuntary manslaughter for the prank, though the officer who fired the shot faces no charges. (Travis Heying /The Wichita Eagle via AP)

Barriss, who has been linked to other swatting incidents, said earlier this year that he is sometimes paid to make the hoax calls and that there is never any motive on his end, but did not say if he was paid for the Wichita call.

Authorities in Kansas say that the shooting stemmed from an argument about gaming, but that Finch's address was given out without him being involved.

Though he expressed remorse in a jailhouse interview with KABC, Barriss also joked that someone was "about to get swatted" when he mistakenly received internet access this week.

"How am I on the Internet if I'm in jail? Oh, because I'm an eGod, that's how," he said on his Twitter account.

Sedgwick County Sheriff's officials said that inmates at his jail were mistakenly given internet access during a software upgrade.